I’m not going to pull any punches here. Genealogy is fun yet often frustrating.
Family stories passed down through the generations often turn into a game of Telephone. A little bit of the true story gets lost with every passing generation.
Case in point: As a teenager, I heard a fantastic story about my great-great grandmother’s aunt. It featured murder, revenge and the Gold Rush. Decades later, I was bored and plugged a few keywords into a newspaper search engine. And I made a fantastic discovery. The story was true. Mostly. The murder happened. The revenge happened. It did indeed happen during the Gold Rush. However, the great-great-aunt’s name was different from the family’s recollection.
So, I thought it would be fun to open this blog up to Louisiana genealogy stories you’ve heard but never been able to verify. Maybe some armchair detectives can prove or disprove them. Submit them in comments.
louisianagenealogygirl 
I would like to finish researching this story. So my grandmother could Rest In Peace. Sent from my iPad
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I’d love to know her story as well. Did you get my email with resource avenues? As her relative, you may be able to get records that I can’t.
I have two big mysteries:
1- My mother’s ggrandparents – There’s a family story about George Boice/Boyce possibly being married before Mary O’Connor, and some rumor that he may have committed a murder before he wound up in South Louisiana.
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Carlin_-_Carline_Family_Mystery
2 – My father’s grandfather – Eddie Yard Blakeman was child number 6 of Elijah and Maria A. White, born in NYC 1854. Yet, Eddie & Maria met, married, and lived in Galveston 1839-1852, where they owned the Palmetto House. The first five children all born in Galveston – how & why did they go back East where Eddie was born? Elijah died in May 1856, according to Blakeman monument in Stratford Conn [Blakeman’s were original settlers there in 1650], but no death record from Texas, or NY. His younger brother George, a ship captain died of yellow fever on the Brig. Eliza Jane in June 1856 – Could it be that Elijah was on the same voyage and died of yellow fever?
https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:EditPerson&u=34038150#bio
Your stories are a model for how I want to present my amazing ancestors, to my family and to history. Your writing is clear, captivating, and tells a great story. Thank you.
PS – I’m a Morgan City native – we’re either related, or darn close to related.
Those are interesting mysteries! I’ll give it my best sleuthing and circle back. And, thank you for the sweet compliment! For sure, we’re related somehow.
Did not mean to post the link in edit mode. This one is directly to profile.
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Blakeman-462
I started digging into the Blakemans. Fascinating! Have you found Eddie’s birth certificate? I’m curious if he was born in a hospital or at a residence.
No birth certificate. The beginning of his record trail is on the 1860 census, where he appears with Maria. His father Elijah is dead (who knows where) according to
and his sister Susan (who would have been 12 in 1860) disappears.
The worst epidemic years that cover the date of Elijah’s death Susan’s disappearance from records were in Galveston 1853-54; and New Orleans were 1853, 54, 55, and 58.
Those time frames cover both Elijah and Susan.
Did Elijah bring his pregnant wife and kids back East to escape the fever, thus Eddie Yard’s 1854 birth in New York? (No birth records were
Did Susan and Elijah both die in May 1856, the date on Connecticut death and burial record. One is an index of inscription from Blakeman monument at Stratford. The other is list from Union Cemetery – is he really buried there?
I’ll continue to dig. What you’ve managed to uncover is amazing. I wonder if something with Elijah’s family brought them to the East Coast, and they stayed longer than expected because Maria was pregnant. They ran a hotel in Galveston prior to Eddie Yard’s birth, correct? When did they sell it?